IN HISTORIC FLIGHT, DRONE TAKES OFF FROM CARRIER

Future of naval aviation on display in unmanned exercise off Virginia coast

The Navy launched a prototype unmanned plane off a U.S. aircraft carrier Tuesday, a significant milestone on the road to drones taking a place at the heart of naval aviation.

The Northrop Grumman X-47B batwing craft was launched by catapult from the deck of the carrier George H.W. Bush off the coast of Virginia.

After practicing several approaches to the carrier, it flew across Chesapeake Bay to land at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland after a 65-minute flight, the Navy reported.

The Navy’s “Air Boss” compared the importance of the launch to the first landing of a conventional plane on the deck of a ship in 1911.

“Today we saw a small, but significant pixel in the future picture of our Navy as we begin integration of unmanned systems into arguably the most complex war-fighting environment that exists today: the flight deck of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier,” Vice Adm. David Buss, the Coronado-based commander of Naval Air Forces, said in a prepared statement.

This summer, the X-47B aircraft will attempt its toughest test: landing on a pitching flight deck. The drone will use a “tailhook” to stop upon landing, just like a manned F/A-18 fighter jet.

Tuesday’s demonstration was more than just a toe in the pool for the Navy. The era of unmanned drones on aircraft carriers is coming this decade.

This month, the Navy will issue a call for proposals for the next phase of development. At least four major defense contractors — Northrop Grumman, Lockheed, Boeing and General Atomics — are expected to compete.

The Navy will likely underwrite the design of four versions, then winnow it down to one before going into production in fiscal 2016.

These carrier drones will join the Navy’s growing fleet of unmanned Fire Scout helicopters, just starting to be used regularly from U.S. warships.

The Air Force and Army have been employing aerial drones for surveillance and firepower, to deadly and controversial effect, for several years.

But operating jets from an aircraft carrier is a different ballgame. Aviators like to say that landing on a pitching flight deck at night is the hardest job in Navy flying.

Technology finally caught up with what’s needed to land a drone on a moving target, said retired Vice Adm. Thomas Kilcline, commander of Naval Air Forces from 2007 to 2010.

“As you come back to your ship, you don’t know where it’s going to be,” Kilcline said. “So you have to find it, then you have to locate where the landing platform is going to be. And then you have to be able to maneuver in close fairly rapidly in order to land.”

The physics of a jet drone are even more complicated than a helicopter because the vehicles are heavier and moving faster.

Some of that complex engineering was performed in San Diego, home to nearly half of Northrop Grumman’s X-47B team. About 100 employees at the defense contractor’s Rancho Bernardo campus work on vehicle design, software development and navigation.

Northrop also makes the Global Hawk and Fire Scout drones and Poway’s General Atomics Aeronautical Systems builds the Predator, making San Diego a center for unmanned-vehicle technology jobs.